


We're made of the same Stardust

by itsjustnoise



Category: (여자)아이들 | (G)I-DLE
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:46:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25146421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsjustnoise/pseuds/itsjustnoise
Summary: An imagining of Yuqi and Soyeon's story in two parts.
Relationships: Jeon Soyeon/Song Yuqi
Comments: 10
Kudos: 110





	1. Sparks fly when We Meet

**Author's Note:**

> Aha I'm back with the next part of my imagining series!! And I hope everyone enjoys this word vomit :)  
> This belongs to the same universe as When the Peach Blossoms Bloom, but you can read it as a stand alone if you want to.

Soulmate. That's the first word that comes to mind when Yuqi thinks of Soyeon. 

Which surprised anyone who asked since they were always bothering each other. Shuhua was no exception. The girl had only been with them for two weeks but she had already picked up on the weird tension that sparked between her first friend and the introspective rapper. "That's really unexpected." She had mused thoughtfully, chopsticks paused over her bowl of half-eaten rice noodles. Yuqi just takes a big bite of her sandwich and shrugs, creases between her eyebrows, smoothing out as she chews. "That's Jeon Soyeon for you, always expect the unexpected from her. Now finish your food, or we'll be late for language class." And Shuhua had nodded, puppy-dog eyes wide as she scarfed down the corner store's 'taste of home'. Yuqi had never met someone with as big of an appetite as Shuhua, and she would never admit it but she's a little jealous of her metabolism since the younger girl always stayed so skinny. Not like Yuqi, who had to watch what she eats all the time. She sighs and wraps her sandwich back up in the plastic and pushes it deep into her bag. Shuhua's gaze on her is concerned when she looks up, a small crease in between her eyebrows. But she doesn't say anything and Yuqi is thankful she doesn't have to lie to the younger girl. Since she was a child, she had hated liars. And even now, as the both of them leave for class, the uncomfortable feeling stays stuck at the base of her throat. She's not hungry.

But Yuqi supposes being that when you have been a trainee long enough, you start to change yourself to fit into the moulds laid out for you. 

She's still horrible at lying, her face gives everything away, Soyeon always says she's as easy to read as a preschooler's picture book. No matter how hard she tries, she can't be like the others, their lies are as natural as water is wet, as ice is cold. It's all about selling yourself in this industry after all, it's one of the first things she learns here. And she hates it, but there will always be some things she and the other girls would rather keep to themselves. So Yuqi was eternally grateful to Shuhua, the girl was so true to who she was, it was like a breath of fresh air amidst the frigid, stale monotony of trainee life. Yuqi feels her exhaustion evaporate just a little when Shuhua chirps in Mandarin by her ear, rightfully excited. Before she came, Yuqi was usually alone, her walks to the practice rooms used to be silent, the quiet just made the voices in her head louder than she would have liked. "Minnie promised-" "Minnie eonnie," "Ah, Minnie eonnie promised me that she'll practise with me for the vocal evaluation later. Her voice is the best, I'm so happy that she would want to sing with me!" Yuqi smiles and nods along, sipping at her water bottle slowly. They run into Soyeon and Soojin along the way and Shuhua immediately falls silent. Yuqi raises an eyebrow and watches how pale cheeks darken with a slight red hue as Soojin waves at them from down the hall. Oh? She thinks slyly and grins when Shuhua tugs on her sleeves to walk faster Yuqi, they're waiting for us. Shuhua bows her greeting as soon as they reach the pair and they look at Yuqi with wide eyes. "You don't have to bow to them, Shuhua. It's okay." "But I thought-" "Well, yeah. They are older but they're your friends right?" And Shuhua nods but it's done with so much hesitance that she feels her heart clench a little. There are many things that she still doesn't know about Yeh Shuhua but one thing she does know is that trust comes with time. And patience is a lesson Yuqi is all too familiar with.

She has always been someone who was easily frustrated, her emotions often bubbled just under the surface of her skin.

Yuqi has tried to be patient since she came here, when she's trying to curl her tongue over a new word in a foreign language, when she's trying to perfect a new dance routine with limbs still aching from the workout yesterday, when she's dashing towards a finish line that doesn't seem to ever be in sight. It makes her feel like everything she's doing now doesn't amount to anything, like she's just watching her precious youth waste away. And she's told herself time and time again that everything she's working towards does amount to something, it will all be worth it in the long run. But on days like these, when her stomach seems to be wringing itself dry along with her soul, Yuqi finds herself asking the Song Yuqi in the mirror if it really is worth it to be sacrificing the control of her body and mind to an industry that demanded so much from her and gave so little back. Soyeon always tells her that it is worth it, in a voice that's so firm and with dark eyes that burn with the same conviction as the heat from a thousand suns. Yuqi always finds her when the voices get too loud, in the comfort of her cubicle studio, where the temperature was almost frigid compared to the entire building. But the heat Soyeon trails behind her as she races by Yuqi's side on their never-ending track scorches the insecurities up almost instantly, the tongues of fire licking at the skin of her cheeks a welcome respite when everything always just feels so cold. 

Soyeon falls into step beside her when they reach the staircase, and Yuqi realises that she doesn't have anything to say.

Usually, there would be a sentence on the tip of her tongue, all ready to kickstart the 'annoying of Jeon Soyeon', as Minnie so often says. But not today, and she blames it on the way her stomach painfully groans at her. 'Be quiet,' she wants to hiss but she can't so Yuqi gulps down a huge mouthful of water to silence it, even if it was only going to be temporary. She hears Soyeon click her tongue and turns, her eyebrows already scrunched together in indignation. "What?" Soyeon doesn't say anything, just shrugs her shoulders and walks faster, Yuqi almost stumbles as she tries to catch up. But then Soyeon suddenly stops at the foot of the stairs and Yuqi barely avoids crashing into the arm that was thrust in front of her face. "Your stomach was being annoying." Soyeon mutters, dangles a packet of something in front of her face and when Yuqi reaches up to take the offered snack, starts the climb to the third floor without another word. All while Yuqi stares at the bag of gummies now in her hands. Haribo Gold Bears, she reads as her fingers close around cool plastic, her favourite snack from the convenience store opposite the building. Her stomach growls again and it still hurts but not as much as before and the corner of her lips rise by just a fraction as she carefully rips open her gift. Yuqi glances around, (a habit more than anything, you would only find trainees in the basement), and when she confirms that there is nobody else around, bites into a gummy bear. She reaches for another one but she hears Soyeon shouting for her to hurry up and quickly throws the packet into her bag. Soyeon, Soojin and Shuhua are waiting for her at the top of the stairs and she purposely bumps her shoulders with Soyeon. "What do you want now?" And Yuqi only grins when Soyeon rolls her eyes as they continue climbing another flight of stairs. She doesn't thank her, but she thinks Soyeon knows by the redness of her cheeks anyway. She's always been able to read her better than anybody else.

Jeon Soyeon is the first person Yuqi meets on her first day in Cube and their meeting is so memorable and unconventional, Yuqi doesn't think she will ever forget it even in 50 years.

She thanks her lucky stars that she was able to learn some phrases in the new language before she landed in Korea. So when the lady at the counter speaks far too quickly for any foreigner to understand, she's able to catch 'vocal evaluation' and 'basement' before she was handed a checklist of sorts, waved away and left alone. Yuqi wanders into a hallway, looking for stairs and wondering why this building seemed so quiet. She walks past a set of lifts but hesitates to use them. Her old school had lifts too, but it was only for the teaching staff and guests to use, getting caught using it usually meant detention for a week. And this might be Korea, it's not even a school, but Yuqi doesn't think the practices would be any different. So she keeps walking and eventually spots the stairs at the end of the corridor. As she descends the dusty marble steps with unsure legs, Yuqi scans the piece of paper in her hands, trying to make sense of the lines in black. When she concentrates, she has the habit of shutting everything else out. It's a dangerous habit, she knows this well, and in hindsight, probably shouldn't be doing so as she walks slowly down the stairs. Then her feet kicks something soft, there's a muffled grunt from somewhere below her and Yuqi feels herself falling forwards as the world tilts beneath her feet. She squeezes her eyes shut and braces for impact but the floor she expects never meets her. Instead, she opens her eyes to meet slitted ebony eyes staring back at her, a little surprised, a little annoyed and a lot confused. Yuqi feels the panic and embarrassment she barely manages to squash down rear its ugly head from the bottom of her stomach.

The girl was saying something she doesn't quite understand and the panic increases tenfold when the girl tilts her head, Yuqi knows she's waiting for a reply she wouldn't be able to give. So she scrambles up from her lap and lifts the paper up, a little crumpled now from the fall, into the girl's line of sight and sees how her eyes widen in understanding. Then the girl was standing up and offering her hand and Yuqi swallows the panic back, deep down into the pits of her heart and takes it. The girl's hands are dry and a little warm and Yuqi finally sees the dark grey earpiece that dangles from her right ear, still pulsing with a beat she can't quite make out. She leads her to a room, knocks once and pushes open the door. Yuqi takes a small step back when a freezing blast of air greets her and the girl lets go of her hand, beckoning her in with the smallest smile the corner of thin lips. "Ting!" She calls and Yuqi sees one of the two girls lift her head from the corner of the small room, a slight raise in her eyebrow at the sudden interruption. "New trainee, I think she's Chinese." Her voice isn't very loud, but Yuqi finds herself gravitating towards it somehow. 'Chinese', this is a word Yuqi does recognise and when 'Ting' comes over with a big smile on her face, ("I'm Ting Yan, but you can call me Ting, or Elkie, whichever you prefer. What's your name?") Yuqi feels the last cold dregs of her earlier panic settle down slowly in her chest. "I'm Yuqi," she gives a shaky smile when the other trainee comes over to join them, hands tightening only just around her piece of paper. "And I'm Minnie! It's nice to meet you!" Ting Yan nudges Minnie who laughs apologetically and turns back to Yuqi. "I'm from Hong Kong, Minnie eonnie's from Thailand. She's not that good at Mandarin yet but she's learning." Yuqi blinks and just notices Soyeon slipping off to join another trainee on the floor, one with big round eyes and a cute smile. "I'm from Beijing," she says instead, ignoring the slight drop in her stomach she can't quite explain, "I'm 17 this year." And when Ting Yan excitedly thrills 'I'm 18!' and Minnie slaps her cheeks with her palms and moans because 'I'm still the oldest here?', she finds herself laughing at her new friends, the uncertainty from before forgotten.

Ting Yan and Minnie bring her to their dorms after her first day was over and as Yuqi trails alongside the other two girls, she feels the exhaustion of the entire day catch up with her within five short steps out of the glass door of Cube Entertainment. Minnie slows down and curls a hand around her wrist when Yuqi yawns loudly, rubbing at her eyes. Ting Yan had wordlessly grabbed her bags when she pointed them out from the pile by the front counter and Yuqi had only a second to wonder how on earth a girl that slender could be so strong when they had whisked her out of the doors and into a rapidly darkening Seoul. "The first day usually isn't the most tiring." Minnie muses from beside her and Yuqi hears Ting Yan humming in agreement, expertly lifting her suitcase over a porthole in the ground. "But you'll get used to it." Her new home away from home is a 2 room apartment a couple minutes walk away from the company and Yuqi realises the lack of people as soon as she steps through the front door. "The Korean trainees stay next door, we're the only foreigners here so this place is ours. Anyway, the codes are the same so we can come and go as we please." Ting Yan explains as she carries her bags to a door that Minnie bashfully opens. This is where she will be sleeping in for the foreseeable future, Yuqi thinks and meets Minnie's hesitant smile with one of her own. "I sleep here too, on the bottom bunk. But if you want to switch, I don't mind." And Yuqi really doesn't mind where she sleeps, she's just thankful she has a place to rest her head. Minnie seems to catch on quickly and pushes her to the bunk bed gently. "You can rest on my bed first, I'll wake you up for dinner in an hour." Yuqi mumbles her thanks, hears Minnie shut the door quietly behind her and lies down gingerly on sheets that smell like lavender fabric softener. Her mind buzzes, her first day in a new country is over and tomorrow is another challenge she's determined to overcome with her best foot forward. Her stomach churns, the tiny scathing whispers of inadequacy and self doubt beginning to grow louder in the silence of her new room. But Yuqi shushes them with a deep breath and closes her eyes, falling into a dreamless sleep.

But the doubt she just manages to silence returns barely two weeks later, when she has her first ever evaluation as an official Cube trainee.

The deepset frown her vocal trainer has on his face when she finishes her song has Yuqi remembering how hard she had to fight for a chance to come to Korea alone, she still feels the phantom pains of leaving everything behind gnawing away at her heart. On the worst days, she relives the moment when she told her parents about her acceptance into Cube. Yuqi will hear her father's disappointed sigh and her mother's sobs and dig trembling fingers into her side to stop them from shaking. It might have already been a year and a half since Yuqi's worse day of her life but the memory is still so stark, she can count the number of lines on her father's forehead as he frowns at her, his only pride and joy throwing away what should have been a stable future for something that only she believed in. When she left Beijing for Korea, she hadn't spoke to her parents in four days, the longest she had ever gone without talking to her best friends. It is not Minnie or Ting Yan that finds her after she quietly flees from the room when the evaluation ends, but Soyeon. She doesn't say anything, just squeezes into the space next to her with a quiet sigh and hugs her knees to her chest. Yuqi doesn't think this empty space underneath the stairs was made to fit two teenage girls but Soyeon's so small, she doesn't seem to have a problem fitting into the tiny crack that was left for her. And when she tilts her head slightly, offering her shoulder, Yuqi feels the tears prickling at the corner of her eyes spill down her cheeks. Soyeon stays silent as Yuqi continues to sob into her jacket and pats her leg awkwardly in the cramped space. "Thank you," Yuqi croaks out when the tears finally stop and Soyeon flashes her a lopsided half-smile. "It's okay, you're okay." She murmurs and crawls out of the space, reaching out a hand when Yuqi still doesn't move. She's reminded of their first meeting, and feels the corner of her lips lift slightly as she grips the warm hand like a lifeline. "Promise me you'll still do your best?" Soyeon whispers to her when she's splashing her face with cold water and Yuqi meets her eyes in the reflection of the mirror. There's a pleasant warmth running through her veins that wasn't there before, Yuqi tries to focus on sharp ebony eyes. "Promise."

Yuqi remembers her promise, holds onto it as tightly as she can when the trainers are being particularly harsh, when all she wants to do is disappear. 

The glowing yellow heat she feels in her bloodstream whenever she does spot Soyeon in the company building doesn't diminish, instead it grows and grows and grows. She gets closer to the other trainees as the days go by and watches Soyeon returning from Produce 101 exhausted and vanishing to film Unpretty Rapstar without a word. She thrives in competitive atmospheres like these, Yuqi knows all too well just how much determination was squeezed into Jeon Soyeon's tiny stature when she was made. Frankly, it's admirable but Yuqi cannot remember the last time she has seen her in oversized shirts and cotton shorts, leaning on the kitchen counter and playfully teasing any of them unlucky enough to cross her. So she buys a bowl of tteokbokki from Soyeon's favourite street cart four blocks away and a huge bear toy with a bright yellow crown, Soyeon's favourite colour. 'So your neck doesn't break when you pass out on the table again.' the note she slips into the crown reads in carefully penned letters. 'Remember to heat up the food. If you're too lazy to do it, then suffer through your inevitable stomach ache.' She places it on the couch, in full view of the front door in the other dorm and prays to whichever God that was listening for Soyeon to see it. And at midnight, when Soyeon finally drags herself through the door and takes in the lumpy shadow of the bear, she first thinks it's Soojin's, that she must have gotten it from her date at the arcade. But when she spots the bowl of already cold tteokbokki, Soyeon decides to take a chance and presses her face into the cloth. She smells the dust of storage, the smoke of the night markets and barely manages to stop her sneeze. But there is another smell, Soyeon recognises it as the scent of the faintly pulsing stars, knows it almost as well as she knows her own name. The characters scratched into the paper are too perfect, almost as if copied straight from someone's phone and as she waits for the microwave's timer to ring, Soyeon imagines Yuqi hauling the gigantic bear down the street. It's enough to make her smile. And that night, Yuqi dreams of somebody pressing a kiss onto her forehead with so much love she wakes up. But her room is still very much silent and dark when she blearily looks around, Minnie still snores from below her. So she rolls over, hugs her stuffed giraffe tighter and falls back into a dreamless sleep. Soyeon smiles as she closes the door quietly behind her, hands clenched tightly around the bear and makes her way back to her dormitory.

Another week without Soyeon passes and Yuqi decides that the feeling of not having someone to banter with is like an itch that she couldn't scratch.

"You miss Soyeon." Minnie tells her one day when they are walking back to their dorm together. And when Yuqi opens her mouth to refute, crosses her arms and shushes her with a raised eyebrow. "Am I wrong? It's written all over your face." Ting Yan might have been the one who spoke the same language as her, but Yuqi cannot deny that she and Minnie are the closest. Kindred spirits, as one might say, two young girls with nobody else in a country so far from home chasing the same dream. And with Ting Yan moving to CLC's dormitory following the news of her debut, Yuqi and Minnie are the only foreign trainees from the old batch left. "I don't miss her," Yuqi begins, chews on her words because the expression Minnie makes is nothing short of unimpressed. She feels like she's seven all over again, getting scolded by her mother for chasing the neighbour's cat just because it wouldn't stop crying outside her window in the early hours of the morning. And when the cat had jumped over a huge ditch to get away from the tiny, screaming girl, Yuqi had thought that she was able to make the same leap as well. As it turned out, she lacked the same athletic grace of a feline and fell, face first to nobody's surprise, into the stone drain. Her mother had been rightfully angry and worried when her daughter had returned to the house with a bleeding face, scrapped palms and a bruised ego. "What possessed you to jump over that drain?" "The Huang's cat could do it, so I thought I could make it too..." Yuqi had meekly said, watched her mother's eyebrows rise into her hairline from the corner of her eyes. "This stubborness of yours will get you one day." Her mother had sighed as she continued cleaning the cuts on her forehead and cheeks, ignoring her daughter's slight winces from the alcohol. It is the same stubbornness that Yuqi feels in her pouting lips when she crosses her arms as well and stares back defiantly. "I just miss quarreling with her, that's all." Minnie waves her weak argument away with a flick of her wrist and rolls her eyes. "Same difference. You miss arguing with her. You miss Soyeon. End of story." 

"She's right, you know." A delicate voice pipes up from behind her and Yuqi swears she doesn't jump three feet into the air in surprise. "When did you get here?" She gasps, a hand over her jack-rabbit heart as Soojin grins mischievously, eyes twinkling. "A little while ago. But you were too busy being in denial to notice." And Yuqi feels her cheeks puff up when Soojin's grin just grows wider. Minnie barks out her laughter, sharp and crowing and reaches across Yuqi's angrily huffing form to exchange a high-five with the dancer. Seo Soojin has been a trainee for only a month but was already well assimilated into their culture of teasing the living daylights out of their once youngest member. Yuqi dearly misses the first few weeks when Soojin had been demure and shy and spoke only when spoken too. Now she's a wolf in sheep's clothing, Yuqi never knows when her teases will come her way. "I hate the both of you." She grumbles, knowing that she had already lost as soon as Soojin joined in. She didn't think Shuhua would be of any help either, their youngest would always side with Soojin no matter what. "Where is Shuhua anyway," she asks, desperate to turn the conversation away from probably her worst kept secret. Her cheeks burn when Minnie and Soojin exchange a look that could only mean trouble, they weren't idiots, Yuqi curses her inability to lie for a millionth time since she became a trainee and looks away. Minnie takes pity on her. "She's at vocal class. She told us to go home first." "Which you would have remembered if you weren't so busy being in denial!" Soojin chuckles and Minnie joins her, their voices loud and grating and Yuqi wants to smash her head into the nearest brick wall. But that would be a really stupid thing to do so she slams her palm onto her forehead with a long suffering groan. There was a chance that they would have stopped teasing her if the foreign and Korean trainees still lived in separate apartments but they were all squished together in one dormitory now, Yuqi resigns herself to her fate. They don't stop teasing her even when they reach the dormitory and Yuqi collapses onto the floor in mock despair, Soojin and Minnie falling down next to her, giggling away. And that's how Shuhua finds them when she returns from class. Yuqi doesn't have to lift her head but she can just picture the weird look Shuhua is shooting at her as she walks past her three new friends sprawled on cool wood.

Yuqi goes to the company late that night, because she misses Soyeon too much to fall asleep.

Somewhere between the fourth and fifth hour of deep, bone-rattling bass, the door to the practise room creaks open and Yuqi locks eyes with Soyeon in the wall length mirror. "Hey." She greets after the silence stretches on for a little longer than usual, watches familiar ebony eyes blink as Soyeon gathers her bearings in this unforeseen situation. "Hey." She returns, mouth curling up into the soft lopsided half-smile that Yuqi has seen directed at her countless times over the years. "Hey." Yuqi walks to her when Soyeon doesn't move and carefully pulls her in, shutting out the muted blackness of the hallway behind a sturdy glass door. "Why are you here?" She asks and this close, Yuqi can see just how dark and puffy the skin around Soyeon's eyes are even through a thick layer of makeup. "Did you just finish filming?" Yuqi frowns, brushes feather-like touches across bone dry skin and parched, cracked lips, sees how Soyeon slowly leans into her palm as she cradles gaunt cheeks. "Why didn't you just go back to the dorm to sleep?" Soyeon huffs out a breath, Yuqi smells the citrus scent of oranges, saccharine sweet and just knows Soyeon skipped her meals again. She purses her lips when Soyeon looks down, unable to meet her gaze and stands to switch off the music. "C'mon." Yuqi says when everything is accounted for, reaches down to close her hand around Soyeon's and hauls her to her feet. There's a strange sense of deja vü here and Yuqi feels how tightly Soyeon's fingers curl around her own. "Let's go home before I have to drag your dead body back." When ebony eyes brighten beneath swollen eyelids, Yuqi pretends the yellow, almost golden glow around her heart doesn't gleam alongside it. The walk back to their dormitory is strangely silent, Yuqi isn't quite used to being quiet when Soyeon's around. But Soyeon doesn't seem like she wants to talk so Yuqi keeps her mouth firmly shut and tries to share her warmth with her sun. And it is only when they are finally back in the safety of their dorm does Soyeon open her mouth again. "Thanks." Her voice is scratchy and Yuqi drags her to the kitchen for a cup of water, trying to decide which packet of instant noodles she should cook for her clearly starving friend. "What for, I haven't even cooked anything yet." She mumbles, back facing where Soyeon was leaning on the kitchen counter, cradling her cup of water in her hand. She can't face her, Soyeon would be able to read the nervousness on her face in an instant.

"For the bear and the tteokbokki." And Yuqi does tilt her head to look over her shoulder now, sees the same lopsided half-smile that sends the butterflies in her stomach into a frenzy. "Glad you liked it." She coughs and reaches up to open their cabinet. Shuhua recently bought a whole bunch of different flavours of instant noodles from the convenience store and was incredibly protective of her secret stash of banned foods. But Yuqi guesses that if she knew who she was cooking for, she would close both her eyes and let this grave crime Yuqi was about to commit slide. "Need help?" She jumps again, because when had Soyeon moved to stand beside her, she hadn't even heard her cross the kitchen floor. Soyeon raises an eyebrow and bumps their hips together, Yuqi jolting to her side because she was ticklish, Jeon Soyeon, stop it now! And Soyeon laughs as she retreats from where Yuqi had shot out her arms to block wandering fingers and the warmth flares when Yuqi sees this unfamiliar Soyeon slowly returning to the one she knows and loves. "As if," she scoffs as she plucks two packets from the back of the cupboard. "I doubt you can even reach them anyways," she bites back her laughter when Soyeon shakes a fist at her. "Black pepper or tom yum?" She grins, sees how Soyeon pretends to consider her options as she strokes at her chin and laughs for real when Soyeon joins her by the stove again, hip to hip, the spot where she touches tingling away. "Cook both," she decides after a beat, Yuqi feels her eyes tracing her prominent cheekbones. "I feel like eating more today." The light in her veins feels like it's spilling out into her palms as she banters with Soyeon over the addition of vegetables into the pot ("You need to eat your vegetables, Soyeon eonnie. They're good for you!" "No! I'd rather die!") and Yuqi sinks into the warmth of her sun as she shines next to her.

They sit cross-legged on the floor of the living room, a bowl each filled with steaming noodles placed between the both of them and Yuqi watches the most constant light of her life slurp up the food like an uncultured barbarian.

She laughs uncontrollably, as boisterous and as booming as she dares with her friends sleeping a room away, when Soyeon inevitably chokes on a strand that was just too long and stands to grab a cup of water for her from the kitchen. When she returns, Soyeon's eyes are veiny and red and she accepts the cup with a hoarse 'thank you'. They fall into silence after that, Yuqi picking at her noodles as Soyeon continues inhaling the contents of her bowl, albeit decidedly slower. "So," Yuqi nibbles on her bottom lips, chances a glance at Soyeon before flicking her gaze back to the window. "Why did you come to the company when you could've went home?" She watches Soyeon swallow her food, sniff a couple times and gulps down a huge mouthful of water as she contemplates her answer. "I couldn't sleep." And maybe in another life, if Yuqi didn't understand Soyeon so well, she would have been terribly confused because Jeon Soyeon undisputedly looks ready to drop dead on her feet, her movements sluggish and her eyes half closed. But in this life, when they were so atuned with each other that there was no longer any need for words, Yuqi understands Soyeon perfectly. "I couldn't sleep too." She says with a crooked little smile and Soyeon closes her eyes, the lines on her face finally relaxing since she stepped into the practice room. The little clock they have on the counter chimes three times and Soyeon meets her surprised gaze with wide eyes. "We're so screwed tomorrow." She giggles and Yuqi finds out that when Soyeon really laughs with no filter, she sounds almost drunk, her pitch rising and falling like a speaker with a broken voice coil weathered with age and use. But it's undeniably Jeon Soyeon and Yuqi carves this sound deep into the walls of her heart. "At least we're screwed together." She sighs and Soyeon turns to her with something she cannot identify sparkling brightly in deep ebony eyes. "Yeah, together." 

Yuqi tries not to dwell on it too much as she bids Soyeon goodnight from her top bunk.

But the glow in her chest doesn't seem to be dimming anytime soon so she stares up into the ceiling with wide eyes and counts to a hundred, willing herself to fall asleep. It doesn't work, a quick squint at her alarm tells her it is already 4 in the morning. She exhales quietly, giving up on her sleep schedule and hugs her giraffe as she lets her mind wander away into her imagination. To no one's surprise, it replays the conversation she had with Soyeon just an hour before. 'Why this?', she wants to ask, 'Why Soyeon?'. You know why, her mind supplies smugly and she squeezes her eyes shut, because this voice sounds a little like Soojin and she really wasn't in denial. Soyeon was just a huge part of her trainee life, she just relied on her for a lot of things. Try again, the voice deadpans and Yuqi hears Soyeon's laughter, remembers the promise she whispered into the cold air of the toilet. It's just respect, I have for her, not love or anything romantic, she tells the voice and freezes when what she says finally registers. "Goddamn it," Yuqi sighs into her hands and hears the voice snort. Told you, it sings, that wasn't so hard, was it? There's really nothing different about their dynamic after this revelation, Yuqi still fights back with rough words whenever Soyeon says something particularly triggering and Soyeon meets her heat flame for flame. They just grow closer, the two of them and Yuqi spends more time in Soyeon's cubicle studio. Minnie wriggles her eyebrows whenever she sees Yuqi on the couch and greets Soyeon as brightly as she can whilst Yuqi glares daggers at her. "I hope we can debut together," Soyeon suddenly says one day, breaking the silence of the studio. Yuqi smiles and meets the determination in Soyeon's eyes with her own, the glare in her eyes as intense as the afternoon sun blazing outside. "I'm counting on it, captain."


	2. I feel your Warmth on My coldest nights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> School's starting so I'm so sorry for taking forever to finish this!! But lately all I can think about are chemical equations and how far a ball will bounce if it hits the wall at 60° :') KMS  
> But yeah all that aside, I hope you enjoy this word vomit!

Soyeon learns 4 very important lessons before she debuts.

The first is to always be the bigger person in any fight.

She learns this from the old grandmother who sells snacks from a pushcart down the street. Soyeon likes talking to her when she stops by for a rare snack. "Come by more often," the grandmother always tuts, not unkindly,"You're so skinny, aren't your parents feeding you? You should eat more." And 14 year old Soyeon always smiles, bashful, her mouth already too full of food to form proper words for a reply. Now, at 16, she ducks under the shade of the huge yellow umbrella and orders two servings of her usual with the brightest smile on her face. "What's the occasion?" The grandmother laughs as she heaps the tteokbokki into Soyeon's bowl and grins at her. "I got accepted into a company!" The grandmother hums and scoops more food into the bowl. "An entertainment company? So you are training to be an idol?" Soyeon nods excitedly and receives the tteokbokki with both hands and a quick 'thank you'. "Train hard." She hears and nods, digging into her favourite snack with all the gusto of an overjoyed child. But then there is shouting from somewhere down the road and she barely has any time to react before the grandmother is reaching across the cart to haul her behind the metal box. And sandwiched between the heat of the stove and bags of ingredients, Soyeon hears a deep gravelly voice demand a bowl of jajangmyeon. "The jajangmyeon sold out an hour ago. But we still have the others." The grandmother was saying before she was cut off by a slew of expletives her mother would have her head for. Soyeon glances upwards, scared and shivering and sees how the grandmother was still smiling despite the slurs that were hurled her way. Then, the menu by the side of the cart flies and crashes into the brick wall in front of her as somebody kicks it and she bites down hard on her lips to stop the scream bubbling up her throat. The voice curses one last time before she hears the rumble of a motorcycle start up and roar away. The grandmother sighs and bends down to Soyeon's level. "I'm sorry you had to hear that, girl." Why are you apologising to me, it's not your fault, Soyeon wants to tell her but all that comes out is a quiet breath. The grandmother sends her on her way with a corndog and Soyeon thinks hard about the situation when she is back home. 

"Why didn't you call the police or anything? Or chased him away?" She asks the next day when she finds herself in front of the cart again. The grandmother looks up from where she was securing her broken sign to a pole and laughs. "I know that boy, there's a reason why he's the way he is." Soyeon squats down next to the grandmother and takes the cords from weathered hands, tightening them onto the pole without much trouble. "But you could have still fought back." "I'm old," the grandmother sighs as she sits back on her plastic chair. "I know how to pick my battles and that boy was raised to be rude, but if I fight back, then I'd be just the same. Nothing changes because I would just be encouraging him to be louder to win." Soyeon was hotheaded and young then, so she couldn't understand why the grandmother was still so calm about it. "But he broke your sign, halmoni." The grandmother waves a hand and snorts," It can always be fixed, or I'll get a new one. No use getting angry over something I can so easily replace." Then she fixes Soyeon with sharp black eyes, the crow's feet around them stark as she squints straight at her."Girl, learn to be the bigger person when you find yourself in arguments you cannot avoid." It's so sudden and unexpected that Soyeon doesn't forget it, even as she frequents the cart less and less as her schedules pick up. And when she does inevitably find herself in arguments she cannot avoid, Soyeon always exhales, steps back and never once does she rise to meet the searing heat she sees blazing in the other pair of eyes.

The second is to always, always smile.

It didn't matter if it was the last thing she wanted to do, if it took almost every single drop of energy in her just to lift the corner of dry lips, Soyeon will still force her mouth into the shape of a smile. At first she smiles because she was told that if she didn't, she looked too scary, too unapproachable, too mean. She was young and naive then, still impressionable, still a blind follower of whatever the adults said. But as she grew, she started to care less and less about what people thought about her and eventually, she learned how to play it to her advantage, spitting words out to a rapid fire beat, challenge gleaming brightly in slitted ebony eyes. Through the months of hearing the same repeated words, she begins to understand that words were only just words and that anyone could say whatever they wanted about you, but the choice of how you choose to act after that will always be yours. Now, a year and a half into training, she chooses to smile to cheer on the younger girls, a silent encouragement to them from the sides during their weekly evaluations. She understands the importance of a smile though, when she smiles and a new trainee from Beijing who just fell into her lap suddenly looks a lot less scared, more at ease.

The third is to never let others determine your worth.

She has never heard anybody tell her that she lacks the talent, lacks the skills needed to survive in the industry. Instead what she hears is "Maybe not this." or "Try another concept instead." or "Change this," and "Change that,", it grates incessantly on her nerves and Soyeon frowns everytime she leaves the meeting, another contract she refuses to sign added to her ever-growing list. She craves originality, wants nothing more than to make a name for herself that is wholly Jeon Soyeon and nothing else. It's hard, she knows this, harder because of how many people have told her she was not pretty enough, not tall enough, didn't shine like the other model-esque trainees she met as she went from company to company. Nobody wanted Jeon Soyeon and her lyrics and too sharp smile and tenacious attitude. Nobody except Cube. And at first Soyeon is hesitent because she has already failed so many times, what's once more? But she grits her teeth and tells herself to try again, maybe this time it'll be different. They accept her. She doesn't look back.

The fourth and final lesson she learns is to always push forward no matter what. 

And she learns it from someone most people wouldn't expect but if you knew Jeon Soyeon at all, it wouldn't surprise you. She wanted to be a ninja once upon a time, when she was young and naive and still oh so brave. One Piece becomes her solace after all the rejection she has faced and she clings on to its uplifting storyline and bold characters overflowing with grit with a desperation born from heartaches. Soyeon hears 'I'm going to be the Pirate King' everyday as she watches her favourite rubber man on the television and mouths along to the claim, Luffy's determination bubbling in her veins. Slowly, it changes. 'I'm going to become an idol', she whispers under breath as she hunches over a worn notebook, scribbling verses to fill the once blank pages.

It's these four lessons she holds close to her heart when she feels like giving up.

And lately, it's a feeling she's slowly becoming more and more familiar with. She feels it in her hands when some of the girls and boys she has been training with for the past few months suddenly stop showing up for night classes, feels it like deadweights clipped on her eyelids when she crawls into bed after a particularly gruelling day. But she feels it the most, a sharp stab right in her heart, when she overhears rumours of Eunbin's debut one day. It's purely by accident, Soyeon knows nobody would think to check the space under the stairs. She had been there for the past hour, phone playing a random song on loop as she struggled to put her thoughts on paper in a coherent melody. The beats she comes up with just don't sit right with her and as she tugs out her earpieces, brimming with barely concealed frustration, she hears voices coming down the stairs. "They met me yesterday," she hears and recognises Eunbin's chirp. The other girl hums in reply, Soyeon knows it's Ting Yan. “They met me this morning.” And the conversation turns muffled as they pass by her hiding spot and Soyeon presses her face into her kneecaps.

She doesn't know how long she spent with her knees drawn to her chest, ipod shaking in pale hands but there were sudden footsteps that stomped their way closer and closer before a shadow falls over her side. Yuqi stares down at her and Soyeon finds that she can't quite meet the bright midnight black eyes from under her curtain of blacker hair. It is not without some irony that Soyeon recalls how their positions were switched just a couple weeks ago, just after the evaluation. But there are no tears on Soyeon's cheeks, she has long since promised herself to never cry. Now, she just feels terribly cold and Soyeon sees Yuqi bite her lips before stretching one hand down. She has never been someone who trusts easily, but only one, two, three seconds pass before she's taking that hand and allowing herself to be pulled from the shadows under the stairs. As Yuqi pulls her through the company doors and towards the convenience store down the road, Soyeon decides to throw caution to the wind and curls her fingers tighter around Yuqi's hand. And just as they turn the corner of the street, she feels Yuqi squeeze back.

Yuqi tells her many stories from her childhood growing up in Beijing. 

She tells her about heavenly maidens with unmatched beauty and majestic talking beasts brimming with wisdom not known to man. But Soyeon's favourite is the story of the mythical archer Houyi and the ten suns he shot down for the good of his people. They left the company together, later than usual, but it is only because they kept laughing at each other in the mirror as they exercised. "Legend has it," Yuqi begins as she hops into the circle of orange-yellow light from a streetlamp and spins on her toes to face Soyeon who had been trudging behind, "the earth had ten suns in the beginning. And they were mischievous suns, when they were supposed to work, they played." Soyeon catches up and falls into step next to her, barely avoiding Yuqi's flailing arms. Yuqi annoyed most people when she spoke so animatedly, Soyeon secretly hopes she never changes. "The deal they had with their mom, was that all ten of them had to cross the sky and then the day would be over. But only one sun could cross the sky at a time, because together, they would scorch the surface below, nobody would be able to live without burning." Soyeon hums and tugs her gently to the left, she had walked past their turn. Whenever Yuqi got into story-telling mode, as Minnie liked to say, everything else became secondary. They had teased her about it before and Yuqi had whined and said she was bad at multitasking before going to pout in the corner. Soyeon had gotten her to come back with a soft call and blatantly ignored Minnie and Eunbins' sly looks in the mirror. "Thanks eonnie." Soyeon hums again and Yuqi lowers her volume as they enter the residential area in the neighbourhood. Their dormitories are at the end of this road, Soyeon knows that they would probably only have eight more minutes together at most. Her fingers curl, she doesn't know why her stomach suddenly feels so heavy.

But Yuqi was still speaking so Soyeon keeps walking with a small smile that she doesn't have the energy to hide away. "The suns didn't like that they were always missing one of their brothers as they played, since one of them was always in the sky and away from the rest of them. So they decided to cross the sky together." Soyeon blinks. "But I thought you said-" "Right, the world would burn. And the world did burn. All the water dried up, the crops shriveled and the people starved and cried to the heavens for help." Yuqi frowns and Soyeon can't help but wonder if it was because they were nearing their block, and not because she felt sorry for people who might not have existed at all, her heart was always that big. "But the gods wouldn't lift a finger to help and the people readied themselves for death. Then a legendary archer, Houyi, came along and shot down the sun's one by one." Soyeon stops and stares at Yuqi, a question searing her tongue. "The gods wouldn't do anything? Then why would the people even worship them at all?" Yuqi smiles, Soyeon thinks that it is tiny and a little crooked, and laughs tiredly. "The people had nobody to believe in back then, I guess." Then, she exhales and pulls Soyeon forwards through the doors of their building. "The suns' mother finally stops Houyi when only one of the suns remain and he demands that this never happens again. And that's it, the story ends." "Just like that?" "Yeah, just like that. My mom ended it abruptly too," Yuqi grins. "I was so annoyed." Soyeon purses her lips and starts her climb to the third floor. But Yuqi stays put and when Soyeon tilts her head to ask what's wrong, says," I wish I could burn everything too, sometimes." And Soyeon remembers how she found her hidden under the stairs after her first evaluation, shaking with cold tears. She breathes in and holds the air in her lungs, walking back down with heavy steps. Yuqi stares at her as she comes closer and Soyeon just catches the moisture she blinks away. "You might not think so now, but one day, you will shine so brightly, the world won't be able to stop looking at you." Soyeon murmurs under her breath. I know I won't be able to.

She hasn't known Soojin for very long, the dancer joined only a month ago but Soyeon thinks they could've been sisters in another life.

"If we debut-" "Soojin, you don't know that." Soojin rolls her eyes and lightly slaps Soyeon's prone form on the practise room floor so she can continue. "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted. If we debut, I think they'll make you the leader." And Soyeon can feel the exhaustion dragging at her eyelids but she forces out a laugh, loud and raspy. It sounds more like a cough than anything else but Soojin still frowns at her from where she lies on the couch above her. "Why did you laugh?" "I don't think they'll make me the leader." "Why not? It's not like there's anyone else." "Minnie eonnie and Miyeon eonnie?" Soojin scoffs and it's Soyeon's turn to aim a quick kick to her feet, "Rude." "They're only older than you by a year. I don't think it makes much difference honestly." Soyeon blinks, closes her eyes and says, "what about you?" And she knows Soojin would make a wonderful leader, she was kind and incredibly hardworking and cared for all of them equally with her heart in her hands. She was fiercely protective too, Soyeon pretended she hadn't heard how the normally shy dancer had shouted at that one trainee who had called Shuhua a dumb moron for being unable to speak their language. Soojin would only deny it if you asked her. "What about me? You think they'll make me the leader?" Soyeon wants to shrug, but she can't find the energy so she ends up wriggling her shoulders instead. Soojin chuckles, shaking her head with a soft sigh. "You've been in a group before, Soojin." "Only for a week before they kicked me out. I’d hardly think that counts as experience.” Then she slips off the couch and joins Soyeon on the freezing wooden floor. “You think you won’t be good enough for us, is that it?” Soyeon wriggles her shoulders again and Soojin finds her hands, Soyeon thinks they fit better with Shuhua’s but soaks up the warmth anyway. “I wish you believed in yourself as much as the rest of us do.” Her voice turns teasing. “I know your biggest fan won't be happy seeing you like this.” Who, Soyeon wants to ask, but she thinks she already knows who Soojin was talking about.

Eventually, Soyeon finds her sprawled facedown on the couch in her studio, head buried in the plush stomach of the bear she gifted her a month back.

And since Yuqi doesn't move an inch when the door alarm rings, loud and jarring, Soyeon assumes she's asleep. She closes the door as quietly as she can and her mouth twists downward into an apologetic grimace when the door alarm sounds again. This time, Yuqi does move and Soyeon looks back up to meet sleepy ebony eyes. "Welcome back," she greets, mid-yawn and wonders aloud what time it was as she rubs at her eyes. "It's 9pm. Stop rubbing your eyes." Soyeon shakes her head and Yuqi smiles, slow and languid, as she stretches her hands above her head. "What are you doing here anyway?" "I missed you." And Soyeon startles, the obvious honesty in Yuqi's voice is unexpected enough to make her freeze. "Dorm's not the same without you around." She swallows, and moves to her chair on slightly shaking feet when Yuqi finally shoots her a toothy grin. It's this casual way Yuqi always manages to throw her off her usual game that Soyeon is the most wary of, and she's sure the girl herself wasn't even aware of it. "That can't be good. Did one of them burn down the dorm? Or worse, did you burn down the dorm?" Yuqi giggles and Soyeon wondered if that's what stars sounded like when they laughed. "Not me, Minnie eonnie almost did. But Soojin eonnie was there so there wasn't much damage." Soyeon sighs and tries to fight the smile that wanted to worm its way onto her face. "Soojin must have gotten a couple white hairs while I was gone." She says as she pulls out her notebook, and when Yuqi doesn't reply, whirls around to check if she had fallen back asleep. Yuqi was not asleep, she found out, and she stared back at Soyeon with disapproval in her eyes. "You're still working on the song?" Soyeon hums. "But it's late." "And the song will not write itself." Soyeon bites her lip as she reaches blindly to her left for a pen.

Her hand closes around cool plastic and when she looks up, she finds Yuqi standing stiffly by her side, the smallest scrunch between her eyebrows and her arms crossed. Cute, she thinks and mutters her thanks, steeling herself to face the words that had been swimming around her mind for the past three weeks. And when Yuqi doesn't move, Soyeon tilts her head to look at her, an eyebrow raised with a silent question. "I know you've been writing this song for a while now." Soyeon blinks, Yuqi sounds almost embarrassed, she's sure she has never heard her use this tone before, the Song Yuqi Soyeon was familiar with was every descriptor of the word brazen personified. "And I know nothing about songwriting but do you want a second opinion?" It takes four seconds for Soyeon's mouth to drop open in understanding and it's in these four seconds that Yuqi loses all confidence and starts backtracking so fast, Soyeon wants to ask her if she had been practicing her rapping while she was gone. It takes her another couple seconds to make her decision but Soyeon has been meaning to do this for a while now, she wasn't sure why she took so long to ask. (No, she knew why. Disappointment and Yuqi never sat well with her then, nothing would have changed even after all this time) "Sure," she says and waits as Yuqi's mile a minute speech slowly comes to a halt, the girl herself blinking like she couldn't believe her ears. "You would?" And Soyeon pats the chair next to her, her heart beating impossibly loud in her chest. "I guess I could use your help." She grudgingly admits, sounding as unwilling as she could. But of course, Yuqi sees right through her farce without any trouble at all. And when she sits down and bounces in the plastic chair next to her as she reads what Soyeon had written over her shoulder, Soyeon can't help but hold her breath, Yuqi's opinion matters more to her than anyone else. "What about the melody?" Soyeon plays it for her and bites her lip when Yuqi doesn't say anything for a good minute. "It already sounds really catchy to be honest. But maybe speed it up and add drum beats?" A fast song, Soyeon thinks to herself, with a strong beat, Yuqi's favourite. She presents the song to the directors a week later and remembers Yuqi's smile.

But when Soyeon hears, 'her voice is too deep for a girl group, maybe we should reconsider Yuqi's place', she feels a sharp desperation flare up from the bottom of her heart. 

"No!" And when management turns to looks at her, feels the desperation simmer down to cautious calm and frigid anger. Her voice is chilling and cold and left no room for argument as she stares down the three grown men sitting across her. "I think Yuqi is essential to the group, her low vocal tone is just as unique as Minnie eonnie's. It's what sets her apart." For two whole heartbeats, it is silent and Soyeon wonders if she just screwed everything up. But then the men are smiling and Soyeon hears, 'a fighter' whispered under one of their breaths and she feels all the stress of the weeks before floating off her shoulders. She leaves the room with aching cheekbones and eyes that prickle with happy tears. "What did they want to talk to you about?" Soyeon jumps, she hadn't realised that she walked past Yuqi, too lost in her thoughts. Even now, it still seemed like she was still walking in a dream. Don’t tell the others about the debut yet, management had warned her, there are still things we have to settle. So she shoots her a lazy smile and shrugs. “Eonnie!” “Nothing important, just said my song was good.” Yuqi grins now and once again, Soyeon feels all the breath woosh out of her lungs, the warm light Yuqi enemates licking at the hairs on her skin. It doesn't disappear even after a couple weeks when the management calls for a meeting, Soyeon feels it flare up when Yuqi brushes her shoulders and desperately wants to reassure her that everything will be okay.

Yuqi punches her in the arm as soon as the rest of them are out of earshot.

"How could you keep such a thing to yourself? For almost half a year too, asshole!" But there are tears at the corner of Yuqi's eyes, her wobbling voice still hoarse from them screaming minutes before. Soyeon just grins, all teeth, and shoves her back with no heat. That warm feeling that spread into her chest was pulsing slowly now, it's comforting weight calming as she fell into step with the Chinese girl who had her heart. "They swore me to secrecy. Besides, you're happy aren't you?" She watches from the corner of her eyes as Yuqi blinks, disbelieving when she processes Soyeon's nonchalant tone. She nods after a minute of silence as the warmth intensifies and spreads, Soyeon swears she feels it at the tips of her fingers. "Then it was worth it." She pretends she doesn't see how Yuqi pauses mid-step, cheeks suddenly redder than usual, the corner of her mouth set with determination. "We should celebrate. I was thinking of chinese food? Or maybe something with lots of mea-" And her thoughts screech to a halt because she feels the softest pressure on her cheek. But when she looked back up with wide eyes, Yuqi was already pulling away with the reddest face and the softest smile. "Better hurry, captain." Her eyes are sparkling, Soyeon thinks to herself, they look like the dewdrops on our windows during sunrise. "Shuhua might wreck the dorm in her excitement." Yuqi continues with a bashful grin and Soyeon barely has time to formulate a proper response before she gets shoved to one side and Yuqi has disappeared down the staircase. "Wha-Hey! No fair, wait for me! Song Yuqi!" 

When she finally catches up with Yuqi, who had already joined the rest of the girls ahead, Soyeon feels all the love in her chest crash over her head like a wave.

So she throws herself forward with a cry and squeezes her way in between Soojin and Minnie. Her best friend's hand finds its way into her right and Minnie grips her left like a lifeline. The six of them side by side take up the width of the entire sidewalk and usually, Soojin would have already nagged at them to be more considerate of the other people around them. But not today, not when the joy of debut sits snugly in all their hearts and Soyeon smells the succession of their dreams. "Oh, tteokbokki!" Miyeon gasps and Soyeon blinks because she recognises this cart with its bright yellow umbrella and painted menu. "Halmoni," she mutters and rushes forwards, skidding to a stop in front of a familiar face stirring the huge pot of her favourite food. The grandmother blinks and Soyeon waits for her friends, no, her family, to catch up with her. "Halmoni," she greets again, lips curling up into the second most genuine smile of the day. Recognition flashes in the grandmother's eyes and Soyeon feels all the joy in her veins bubble and fizz and pop. "It's you. Finally back to see an old grandmother?" But before she can answer, she feels someone appear her side and when Soyeon wraps an arm around familiar hips, Yuqi had finished her greeting and was staring at the both of them with a grin. "Oh, you're friends?" The grandmother says and it's only because she's right next to her but Soyeon notices how Yuqi nods a second too late. "Yes, we've been friends for a few years now." The grandmother laughs, hearty chuckles that causes Yuqi's cheeks to darken prettily under the glaring lights of her cart. "Well, I should have known. You two always order the exact same thing. Although you," she turns to Yuqi, amusement in her eyes, "always get two orders of everything."

Soyeon hears how Yuqi gulps and wants so badly to press a kiss to her cheek. "Soyeon eonnie doesn't have the time to come get tteokbokki sometimes, she's too busy." And the grandmother clicks her tongue as she starts scooping up their usual order, even though Soyeon hadn't ordered anything. “Well busy is good, busy means you’re in demand.” Soyeon nods, there was a reason why she liked talking to this grandmother, they had the same spark in their veins. “Busy is good.” She echoes and the grandmother smiles at her, eyes disappearing behind crow feet. “You’re a hard worker, girl. I’m glad you have someone to take care of you.” Yuqi’s face flushes scarlet and she squeaks when the grandmother bursts into loud guffaws that causes the bowls in her hands to sway precariously. But Soyeon’s cheeks are hot too and she’s glad that Yuqi won't meet her gaze because yes, she is so incredibly lucky to have Yuqi watching her back like this. Yuqi squeaks again when she bumps their hips together and takes the bag from the grandmother with a weak grin. “Visit me again, the both of you!” She says and Soyeon nods, gripping Yuqi’s hands tightly. She's a good one, the grandmother had whispered in her ear when she had hugged her behind the cart. Soyeon can't help wondering how obvious she had to have been if someone who has only seen them interact once already knew her secret. As they walk back to their dormitory, Soyeon wonders if she should tell Yuqi how brightly she shines when she's next to her. Sh glances down, Yuqi was still holding her hand.

There won't be a better time, Soyeon realises as Yuqi chuckles beside her, ever the girl who brought with her the stars from the sky. 

She isn't even sure if God himself could predict when this warm feeling she associates with her steadfast supporter would glow this brightly again. So she stands and everyone's eyes follow her when she reaches down, palms opened and determined. "I need to talk to you. Follow me?" She sees first-hand how her midnight sky eyes soften and crinkle at the corners. And it might be the joy of debut making her imagine things but she hears an 'always' whispered like an unspoken promise. Yuqi takes her hand and allows herself to be hauled to her feet and Soyeon pretends she doesn't see how Soojin winks at her from the corner of her eyes. The door clicks shut behind them and Soyeon tries to stop the pounding of her heart. "What's up?" Yuqi asks when they stop walking, looking around curiously. Soyeon's hands are clammy with sweat and the realisation of the situation, but she thinks back to all the missed opportunities and resolves to not let go of her chance this time. "Why are we at the rooftop?" It's late and usually their neighbourhood is quiet but a few blocks away somewhere, Soyeon hears hollers from another celebration. "I brought you here because I wanted to show you the stars." She watches how Yuqi's button nose scrunches, how bow lips turn downwards into a confused frown. "What," Yuqi laughs and squints up to the sky again. "Eonnie, there aren't any stars tonight." And she was right, the sky tonight was completely dark, the only source of light was from the crescent moon. But even it was hiding behind the clouds. "There's one standing in front of me." Soyeon says instead and Yuqi's mouth drops open, her hands floundering around before she clasps them behind her back. It might be dark but Soyeon still sees how the apples of her cheeks turn a bright red. "Very funny, Soyeon eonnie." Yuqi laughs again but her voice trembles and she suddenly can't quite meet her gaze. 

Soyeon thinks back to how Yuqi had always been there for her, ever since they met three years ago.

"She's my role model for so many things and she's helped me grow so much into who I am today. I'm thankful that she's been with me all this time." Yuqi had said during one of the nights they were eating together on the living room floor, cheeks a bashful ruby red. Shuhua had made retching noises as soon as Yuqi sat back down and Minnie had joined in barely a second later, eyes flashing with something not unlike mischief as she fell into Soyeon's side. Soojin had coughed into her palm, and when Soyeon had turned to her with her chopsticks raised, met her glare with a knowing gaze. But Soyeon had never forgotten how bright Yuqi's eyes were when she spoke, the way she sounded so sure, all of them knew that she meant it from the bottom of her heart. She thinks about the Yuqi she met all those years ago at the staircases, when she quite literally dropped into her life and the Yuqi who now stands before her, with bangs and the same puppy dog eyes. "I wasn't joking. You've always shone the brightest to me, like the constellations you love so much. And your light is something that I really treasure, it's always so comforting." Looking back, Soyeon will cringe horribly the words that left because she didn't do sappy or romantic, that was more of Minnie or Miyeon's style. She was straightforward and to the point and only spun words around her fingers when she was writing. But when Yuqi looks at her like this, with her galaxy eyes shining like the warmest nebulas and cosmos, Soyeon thinks that maybe she could be a little romantic once in a while.

Yuqi's smile is wobbly now, nervous and unsure as she processes her words.

And since she has always been the one giving, Soyeon decides that now, it's her turn to be transparent with her heart. "I brought you here because I wanted to thank you for being by my side all this time. And for all the other times when you understood me without the need for words. You've always pushed me to be a better person, and I'm always so inspired by you." Yuqi looks off into the starless sky again but as her smile slowly changes, Soyeon wonders if her cheeks hurt from trying so hard not to grin. Her own cheeks suddenly feel too hot again as she pauses for a breath (for courage, for time, for air, she doesn't know), and bites down hard on her bottom lip. "I kinda realised something, just now, all of a sudden, as we were eating. You were laughing, laughing really hard. And I... I kinda wanted to hear it. Everyday." Yuqi's lips curl up into a smirk that she quickly covers with her hands and Soyeon really wants to kick herself, preferably off the roof. Words always came easily to her, the way she weaved them together beautifully on paper and into melodies as part of her job was a talent envied by many. But Yuqi always had this effect on her, Soyeon supposes that after spending so much time together, she should already be used to how this one girl always seemed to render her brain to mush. "I already laugh at you everyday, how much more greedy can you get?" But Soyeon sees how wide eyes glisten and just knows that Yuqi already understands what she was trying to say. So she meets her smirk with one of her own and watches how Yuqi swirls the words for a reply around in her mouth. The ball's already in her court, Soyeom hears a voice in her head muse, you can only wait for her answer. 

But when Yuqi steps into Soyeon's personal bubble, she thinks the answer has already been in front of her for a long time now.

Her smile is so bright and blinding, Soyeon swears that she can set the whole world ablaze behind her and it would still be the only thing she can focus on, too lost in the light of burnished amber glowing in the dark. "You know what's funny?" Yuqi's tone is teasing as she meets her gaze, unwavering, a small lift at the corner of lips she stared at for far too long sometimes. "What?" "Your entire monologue, it sounded really familiar to me." Soyeon scratches her cheeks, feels them warm under her fingers as she fights to keep the sparks in her bloodstream from shooting about. "Well, the feeling is mutual, I thought you knew that." Yuqi laughs again and Soyeon wants nothing more than to bottle up the sound and keep it next to her heart. "Captain, I'd laugh for you everyday if you'll want me to." Up till this point, Soyeon's chest feels like a dormant volcano, all compressed pressure and liquid magma slowly, slowly, slowly building up and around her throat. But as soon as the words left Yuqi's lips, she feels the eruption so strongly, her face splits into a too wide grin that couldn't even begin to quantify the pure, palpable joy that she wanted to curl her hands around. Yuqi's grin grows as well, and matches hers because they were just so in tuned with one another, they've never really needed words. And really, Soyeon hears that same small voice that always whispered to her, who is stopping you from kissing the red off Yuqi's cheeks? 

Nobody, she replies and drinks in the small squeak of surprise Yuqi lets out when her fingers grip and tug the well-worn hoodie in shaking hands.

It's still really dark up on the rooftop and Soyeon bumps her nose with Yuqi before she finds her lips. But when they finally do kiss, Soyeon realises that Yuqi tastes like nothing but the stars.


End file.
